Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of school attendance on learning and child labour in Ghana.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a nationally representative sample of household and individual data in 2005/06 and 2011/12 for the analysis. Regression discontinuity, the capitation grant in 2005 as exogenous, is used to estimate the impact of school attendance on child labour and learning outcomes.

Findings

The study found that children who were exposed to the capitation grant spent more hours in school and were more likely to enrol in primary school. School attendance was found to increase the likelihood to read and write a standardised test in English. Also, the improvement in children’s school attendance was found to enhance the likelihood of performing a written calculation. The authors could not find any evidence that school attendance affected child labour.

Originality/value

This research is the first causality analysis in sub-Saharan Africa that uses a nationally representative dataset to study the impact of school attendance on child labour and learning outcomes using a regression discontinuity estimator to deal with endogeneity issues.

中文翻译：

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上学对童工和识字的影响：来自加纳的回归不连续性证据

目的

本文的目的是研究在加纳上学对学习和童工的影响。

设计/方法/方法

本文使用具有全国代表性的 2005/06 和 2011/12 年度家庭和个人数据样本进行分析。回归不连续性，即 2005 年作为外生的按人头补助，用于估计上学对童工和学习成果的影响。

发现

研究发现，接受按人头补助的儿童在学校的时间更长，更有可能上小学。研究发现，学校出勤率增加了用英语读写标准化考试的可能性。此外，还发现儿童入学率的提高可以提高进行书面计算的可能性。作者找不到任何证据表明上学影响童工。

原创性/价值

这项研究是撒哈拉以南非洲首次使用具有全国代表性的数据集来研究入学率对童工和学习成果的影响，并使用回归不连续性估计器处理内生性问题的因果关系分析。